


Gift Tag

by freosan



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Divergence, Creepy Ardyn, Gen, Kinkmeme, Ritual Tattooing, nonconsensual tattooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 08:58:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: At Zegnautus, Ardyn leaves his mark on Prompto.





	Gift Tag

**Author's Note:**

> For [this kinkmeme prompt](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/4398.html?thread=7553070#cmt7553070):  
>   
>  _During his captivity in Zegnataus Keep Ardyn decides he's going to give Prompto a more meaningful tattoo that just the barcode. One that hasn't been used in centuries. The exact meaning of the tattoo is up to you, mark of a royal concubine, or acolyte of the healer king, or whatever else you think of. So he ties Prompto down with access to the skin he where he plans to place the tattoo and starts._
> 
>  _+heavy emphasis on the ritual aspect. Candles and incense, the skin is anointed before hand Ardyn starts. Maybe chanting or specialized music is played somehow_  
>  _++The tattoo is done with a needle dipped in ink rather than a tattoo gun._  
>  _+++The tattoo is large and intricate and takes several days/sessions to complete, and even then only because of Ardyn hurrying the process via magical healing._  
>  This fic contains really, really terrible tattoo hygiene practices. Ardyn has magical healing; please do not use him as a role model in this or anything else.

“Are you much of a student of history?” Ardyn asks.

Prompto looks up from the tight ball he’s curled himself into, in the corner of his cell. He doesn’t bother to move. If Ardyn wants him moved, it’ll happen, and until then he refuses to give up the cold comfort of a wall at his back.

“Used to get B’s in it,” he says.

Ardyn waves his arm, dismissing Prompto’s academic record in a swirl of gaudy scarves. “They would not have taught you what I am about to teach you in school.”

At this point, literally anything Ardyn says sounds like a threat. Prompto tries to force himself farther backwards but his bare heels just slip on the concrete floor as the corrugated metal of the wall digs into his spine.

“In ancient times, it was not only the Shield to the King who bore the mark of his service,” Ardyn says. Prompto knows he’s leading up to something but, sleep-deprived and starving as he is, he can’t think of what it might be. He grips his shins a little tighter and waits.

“All members of the King’s household could be claimed for life, if he so chose to honor them. Even his scullery maids might have a permanent mark emblazoned on their flesh.”

Ardyn makes his forefinger and thumb into a circle, and presses it to his chest, right below his left shoulder. “Right here. That would be only a small token of the King’s favor, however. Someone he truly valued might have an entire arm, or leg, or torso covered. Noctis must esteem his Shield greatly to have allowed him such an extravagant mark.”

As far as Prompto knows, Noct had less to do with the size of Gladio’s tattoo than Gladio’s insistence that he wanted one exactly like his great-grandfather had, only cooler.

“You are no Shield,” Ardyn says. “What are you to him?”

“I’m his _friend_ ,” Prompto bites out. Answering is a stupid idea but Prompto’s got to hold on to that, that he’s Noct’s friend, his _best friend_ , because what the hell else does he have going for him?

Ardyn sighs, and smiles, and waves his finger in front of Prompto’s face. Prompto suppresses the urge to snap at it. He learned that lesson the second time. “Royalty does not have _friends_. You belong to him.”

“How would you know?” Prompto asks before he can help himself.

Ardyn ignores the question, bending down to catch Prompto by the chin. “You do keep him amused, don’t you? Perhaps that’s all he needs you for. You’re not much use for combat, after all; you’d do better as a toy.”

Prompto glares at him. If looks could kill, Ardyn would be a smoking corpse on the floor right now. Unfortunately, he didn’t get that modification, and Ardyn just laughs at his rage.

“Pick him up, and bring in the equipment,” he says. Prompto’s attention snaps to the door of the cell just in time to watch five MTs file in. Two come straight for him; the others move behind Ardyn.

Prompto fights, like he always does, and his soulless, half-daemon brothers pry his arms away from his legs, like they always do. Prompto is panting and bruised by the time they have him on his knees. They’re getting better at not hurting him at least. Ardyn uses two of them now instead of one, so they never have to resort to concussing him to make him compliant. Now one of them keeps its hand on the back of his head as it twists one of his arms up behind him, and the other steps on his calf and pulls the other arm out and back.

He stops struggling. He has just enough leeway that he can see what the other three MTs are up to, if he strains to look, and that’s going to disappear if he fights any more. One of them is holding a pile of richly colored fabric, and another is laying some kind of frame out on the floor. Prompto feels his stomach clench. The last is arranging small objects in a circle around the frame. Ardyn’s coat swings into Prompto’s field of vision and blocks his view before he can figure out what they are.

“Since there is no hope of the young king picking up the old ways, I shall take on the responsibility for him,” Ardyn says. Prompto ignores him, focuses on the noise of shifting fabric behind him. He wants to know what’s coming. He knows that sometimes Ardyn sets things up so he can figure it out, and sometimes he wants it to be a surprise; either way it’s always, invariably, awful. But curiosity still gets the best of him no matter what.

“He will enjoy seeing you with his mark, though I have no doubt he would deny it.” Ardyn’s fingers settle in Prompto’s hair, rubbing small circles into his scalp. Prompto grits his teeth. It’s the first time he’s been touched by human hands in days. He hates that it sends chills down his spine, hates that he has any physical reaction at all. And it distracts him, so that when he starts smelling burning, he has no idea when the fire started.

The scent is sweet and heavy, not like the electric or gasoline fire he’d expect in a place like this, but like campfires with too much pine. It’s familiar from temples back home. Incense, and a _lot_ of it, already filling the cell with smoke.

“It will be rather faster than it otherwise might,” Ardyn says. “What would take two or three months had you another artist, I can complete in only a few days. It will not be quick, of course; one can’t rush art.”

Prompto doesn’t like the sound of that. The smoke of the incense is starting to get to him, making his eyes water, and turning the cold, sterile cell into something altogether more lush. It is like a temple. He's even kneeling like he's praying - he almost laughs at the thought.

“Strip him,” Ardyn says. He shrugs his own coat off and tosses it aside.

Then Prompto _fights_. He yanks his limbs away from the MTs so hard he bruises his own wrists. It takes a third MT to hold him while the first two strip his shirt off. The second he gets an arm free he slams his elbow into one of the MTs' masked faces. It doesn’t even flinch. They have to shove him to the ground and step on him to get his jeans off. The metal boot that hits him between the shoulder blades hurts like hell and he growls, yells, and kicks the whole time, but there’s only one of him and he’s barely in good enough shape to walk, let alone fight. Soon he’s naked and shivering and pressed into the concrete by six metal-gloved hands.

He thinks he knows what’s going to happen next. It scares him to death. He tries to steel himself against feeling Ardyn’s hands on his body, Ardyn’s skin against his, Ardyn shoving into him. It’s going to hurt, he’ll have marks later, he’ll be lucky if he can walk for days. He knows he’s going to tear up but he hopes he can be strong enough not to make too much noise.

None of that happens. The MTs pull him back up to his knees. Ardyn is still standing, watching, fully clothed except for his coat and scarves. His frilled sleeves are rolled back. He steps aside, and gestures to what’s behind him. “It’s not perfect, but we can make do for now. Don’t you think?”

Prompto feels dizzy from his aborted terror. It takes him several seconds to actually see what Ardyn’s showing him. The MTs have made something like a nest of blankets, piled on a large, thick carpet that laps up to the metal wall on two sides. The carpet’s surrounded by candles - six candles - alternating with six incense burners, all billowing sweet-scented smoke. There’s a table and a low chair at one side of the blanket pile. The whole effect is decadent, intimate almost, like an illustration of an opium den. It’s only the harsh metal and bright fluorescent lights of the cell that ruin it.

Ardyn walks around to stand behind the blankets and spreads his arms, smiling pleasantly like Prompto isn’t bruised up and mad enough to spit nails. “Please, lie down. Let us begin.”

The MTs pull and push him into place, face-down with his arms spread out on the blankets. He struggles as best he can for the look of the thing, but he doesn’t really expect to get out. This time instead of metal cuffs it’s rough rope that goes around his wrists and ankles and waist. He pulls at the ties but they’re secured to the metal frame underneath the inviting-looking nest. When he’s pinned to the blankets, any further fighting he might do absorbed by the softness of them, Ardyn himself ties ropes over his shoulders. He strokes Prompto’s neck and the ropes bite into Prompto’s shoulder and ribs as he tries to jerk away.

Ardyn’s hands never really leave Prompto’s body after that, fingertips trailing from the nape of his neck to his wrist, and then down his back, over his ass and down his legs to the ankles, while Prompto shakes in revulsion and anger.“I shall have to decide where to position it, first. Large, but not too large - we mustn’t forget our place,” Ardyn murmurs, as his hands trail towards Prompto’s shoulders again.

Prompto knows Ardyn knows what he’s going to find under the wristband, when he takes it off. Knows it’s not a surprise to anybody, but he can’t help his choked gasp, the growl that rises up in his throat at the sight of Ardyn’s sinister smile. “How perfect. Placing the mark of your own true king right alongside the mechanical tag of the Niflheim Empire.”

That seems to be the point where he decides, though Prompto’s sure he already knew what he was going to do. Prompto’s put it together himself, finally, even though his brain is still so slow. He’s about to get marked. Tattooed with something Ardyn chose. The idea chills him to the bone, colder even than the winds of Niflheim. He thought he’d escaped the changes Ardyn and Verstael wanted to make to him.

“You’re a sick bastard, you know that?” Prompto says. His delivery is kind of ruined with his face pressed into the plush red fabric, but he thinks he makes up for it in sheer conviction.

“What way is that to speak to someone who’s only offering help?” Ardyn asks. He’s fussing with something behind him, where Prompto can’t see. “I’d thought you would be grateful. Noctis is obviously in need of convincing as to your loyalty.”

Prompto glares at him with one eye, and Ardyn smiles and throws a blanket over the lower half of his body. It’s heavy, and warm. Actually, the whole atmosphere in the room is changing, the chill in the air less pronounced and the lights starting to get dim. It doesn’t help with Prompto’s desire to stay on guard.

Ardyn shows Prompto the needle, actually three needles fitted closely together, sharpened to nearly invisible points and affixed to a slender stick. Prompto cringes into the blankets. His captor sets it aside, though, letting Prompto’s thoughts linger on it while he dips his fingers into a bowl on the floor. They come out shining with oil in the candlelight. The overhead lights have gone out completely.

“This is a sacred process,” Ardyn says, as he lets the oil drip on Prompto’s forearm. It’s warm, scented with resin, just like the incense. “It will be the visible proof of your covenant with the line of Lucis for the rest of your natural life.”

The sweep of hands up Prompto’s arm is anything but relaxing. Ardyn digs deep into Prompto’s muscles, not encouraging the knots out, but forcing him to release his tension or be bruised. As he works the oil into Prompto’s skin he keeps talking, slipping into a different language. The words have the cadence of a poem or a prayer. It’s almost hypnotic, between the smoke and the dark and the warmth, and the rhythm of Ardyn’s speech and his hands. He doesn’t miss an inch, even pressing oil into the spaces between Prompto’s fingers and the bend of his armpit.

When Ardyn has finished anointing Prompto’s arm, Prompto hears a bell chime, and then another, and another. The chord is strange and the sound keeps reverberating long past where it should have faded out. He shakes his head, weakly.

“Shush. Think of your king. This is for him, after all.” The bells chime again, in a different order. Same dissonant chord.

Prompto snorts. He doesn’t want to think about Noct while this is happening. None of this is Noct’s fault. “Noct wouldn’t try this.”

“No? Perhaps he would not. He would be too afraid you would reject him, and good reason he would have for it, too, if this is how you react.” Ardyn comes up with a brush and a pot from his pile of tools. He dips the brush into the pot and it comes up covered in pale grey ink. Despite knowing exactly what it is, Prompto jumps and clenches his hand into a fist when the bristles touch his arm.

“ _You_ didn’t ask,” Prompto says. His eyes are fixed on the brush. Ardyn wields it slowly and deliberately, leaving long lines up Prompto’s inner arm. Prompto knows tattoo artists sketch first. He remembers Gladio pointing out the places where his tattoo hurt the most. One of those places was the pit of his elbow. Ardyn drags the brush right over that and up onto Prompto’s bicep in a smooth curve. By the time he’s done, the damn thing is going to take up Prompto’s whole arm. Panic creeps up on him and he tries to pull away.

The brush lifts only slightly from his skin. “Stop moving or I shall render you incapable of it,” Ardyn says. Prompto has zero doubts that he would and could. He nods very slightly and uncurls his fingers.

“So you _can_ be good.” Ardyn’s gaze on Prompto’s bicep is intent; Prompto can’t see anything about the design but it’s more detailed up there, right above his elbow. “You will both be the happier for this, I assure you. I do not intend to let you pass over such an opportunity simply because you would not admit to wanting it.”

“I don’t,” Prompto protests.

“Noctis will say the same, no doubt, but you’ll find him appreciative. Surely you’ve seen how he reacts to that Shield flaunting his feathers.” Prompto hisses through his teeth. It’s not like that, he wants to say, but he’s afraid Ardyn has an argument against him.

Ardyn puts the brush aside, his sketch work apparently done. Muddled grey lines cover all of Prompto’s arm that he can see, and he feels the itch of drying ink up and over his shoulder almost to his spine. It’s huge. Literally the only person Prompto’s ever seen with a bigger tattoo is Gladio. It’s the kind of tattoo you don’t get unless it means _something_ , and Prompto doesn’t even know what it is. He tries to lift his head but Ardyn tuts at him and slaps his face so hard Prompto’s ears ring. Then he feels the ropes crossed over his shoulders tightening. When Ardyn’s finished that, Prompto can barely take in a full breath of air.

“It will be with you forever. You’ll have time to see it.” Ardyn smiles down at him, almost genuine and creepier for it. His eyes glow golden in the dim, hazy light. The chimes ring five times in a different chord and Ardyn picks up the needle. Prompto’s eyes track it as he lifts it and dips it in black ink. It too shines like gold.

The first touch of the needle is on the back of Prompto’s forearm. Ardyn’s bare hand spreads over his wrist, and Ardyn rests the stick on his own thumb, and stabs the needle Prompto’s skin five times in quick succession. It leaves a small black dot right above the pale grey line of the sketch ink. It’s such a small thing to feel like such a violation.

“Don’t move your arm,” Ardyn tells him, almost gently. He wipes some ink away, lays his hand down, and repeats the process. Another dot joins the first. Prompto watches in slowly growing horror as the dots join together and become a line, then a curve.

The needle continues to jab into his flesh. After a while it turns into a solid stretch of burning, all over and down his forearm. No individual stab hurts _that_ much, but all together, they make something different and much, much worse. The lines keep getting wider and longer and Ardyn doesn’t work in any particular pattern, jumping around to the edge of each area of black until the little dots are pushing against the new territory of his elbow and his wrist and the sensitive skin under his arm. There’s no way to tell where it’ll hurt next. Even seeing the needle drive down doesn’t help. Sometimes he clearly sees it go into his wrist, and feels sharp pressure near his elbow instead.

He loses track of time fast. It’s happened before, when Ardyn takes it into his head to pull this kind of shit. It could be hours or it could be minutes of the black lines spreading up his skin. Every time Ardyn goes back to dip the needle in more ink, the chimes echo over each other until it’s all just one haze of sound.

Ardyn gives him honey when his vision starts to turn to static, makes him suck it off his fingers, the sugar leaving a bitter aftertaste. It wakes him up but that’s not a blessing. Prompto would rather be unconscious for this. At least it settles his roiling stomach a little.

The outlines are completed that day. They stretch, with a pain like sunburn, from the back of Prompto’s hand to the blade of his shoulder. Ardyn leaves Prompto tied down while he picks up his materials, pats him on the head, and walks out.

The candles go out when he leaves. Three MTs, apparently not needing light to see, come into the room and hold Prompto down while they untie him, then chain him by the ankles to the opposite wall of the cell. They don’t give him his clothes back, and the chain isn’t long enough for him to reach the blankets that they leave behind. He has to stretch to the limit of it to get to the tiny bare sink and toilet in the corner. It’s not the worst accommodations they’ve left him in, but it’s definitely vying for second place.

The dark is total enough that he can’t make out anything of the pattern on his arm. He can feel it, though, the raised lines of open wounds in his skin. It’s huge, it’ll be impossible to hide all the time, he’ll have to redo his whole wardrobe - and it doesn’t _belong_ on his _skin_ , it’s like it’s not even his anymore. He scratches at it like he’s gonna pull the ink right out of him, but his nails are broken down to the quick and ragged from clawing at MTs’ armor and concrete floors, and he doesn’t get much of anywhere. Only a bit of bleeding and more pain.

He curls into a ball and shivers through most of the night.

In the morning, the MTs tie him down to the blankets again, and Ardyn comes in, and the candles and incense are lit, and Prompto can only see Ardyn’s shadowed form through the smoke.

Prompto lets it happen. In the dark, while he’s stiff and sore and naked, there’s not enough of a chance to be worth the bruises he’ll get. He’s still shivering from cold when Ardyn sits next to him and touches his shoulder, lightly. He jumps.

“I know, my dear, it hurts, doesn’t it?” Ardyn croons. “Let’s prepare you.” Prompto flinches again, but Ardyn just covers his fingers in more of that scented oil, massaging it deep into Prompto’s arm. It feels weird, sensitive over the places where his skin is still raw.

“Noct’s not gonna come back for me,” Prompto says over the sound of Ardyn’s chanting. “He’s too smart for that. He won’t ever see it.” Prompto desperately hopes it’s true, that Ignis will be rational enough and Gladio driven enough to keep Noctis on the rails to find the Crystal. But he also knows it’s a lie, that Noct will at least try. The thought brings him some kind of comfort.

Ardyn finishes by taking each of his fingers in turn and rubbing the oil into them. Prompto twitches in his hold. It would be better if he were still tense, but he’s so fucking tired and he’s warm, now. Ardyn’s weird prayer ends and Prompto feels… something, a tingle, a pleasant soft glow, starting at the back of his hand and working its way up as Ardyn passes his own palm over Prompto’s skin. There’s light, faint but present, shining out from under his hand. Healing magic, Prompto realizes, eyes wide.

“Of course he’ll come back for you,” Ardyn replies, finally. “You didn’t think I went to all this trouble for my own pleasure, did you? _This_ is for _Noct_.”

Prompto flexes his fingers and his arm as far as the ropes will allow. His skin feels whole again. Whatever Ardyn did, however he got powers like the Oracle’s, it worked.

“He’ll hate it,” Prompto says, with deep assurance. He knows it’s true. It’ll be a pain in the ass to cover up, but Prompto will do it, because otherwise every time Noct looks at him he’s going to grit his teeth like he does when he’s feeling guilty. Prompto won't put him through the struggle of pretending this is okay. He’ll do what he has to, even if he has to get his whole damn arm tattooed black to erase it.

“One day, I hope Noct appreciates the gifts I give him,” Ardyn says almost wistfully. Then he picks up his needle again and begins. The chimes ring out. Today it’s grey ink and the first dot of it is on the back of Prompto’s hand. It feels like the needle’s going to go _through_ him. He bites down on his own lip and grips at the rope holding his left hand down.

The needle and the pattern are the same as yesterday, but worse, because Ardyn keeps going over the same places he’s just put ink in. “Ow, fuck, you _did_ that already,” Prompto says, when Ardyn revisits his inner wrist for the third time.

“It needs to be shaded. I shall not present you to the _King_ with imperfect work,” Ardyn says without breaking his rhythm.

“I’m getting it lasered off as soon as I get to civilization. No one’s gonna have time to apprec _iate…_ ” Prompto’s voice breaks into a high-pitched squeak as Ardyn adds dots of white to the shape on the back of his hand.

Ardyn laughs, pleasantly, like he’s not drilling into Prompto’s bones with the fucking needle. The sound fades right into the eternal chimes. “Have you so little respect for fine art?”

“I’m a photographer, asshole.”

“Taking fleeting moments and making them permanent,” Ardyn murmurs. “Such a terribly _human_ activity.” He switches out the white for dark grey again and moves up Prompto’s arm, sweeping his hand over the open skin at Prompto’s wrist. When he taps the needle just under his elbow, Prompto feels the pain there and a weird, nerve-strumming pressure in his bicep.

Ardyn works his way across Prompto’s arm, turning his wrist slightly for better access underneath it. He taps a cluster of five dots into his skin, and says, “Poor dear, you’re shaking.”

Prompto glares at him and stifles a gasp as the next grey dot goes in right over the first one. “Shut up.”

“You need sugar,” Ardyn says. He lays down the needle, for a moment, and brings out the small pot of honey again. Prompto sighs. It’s so predictable that a creepy asshole like Ardyn would make feeding him into this weird quasi-sexual _thing_. He’s starving, though, he needs the calories. Just like yesterday, he won’t resist. Even if the temptation to bite is getting stronger every minute.

“Say please.” Ardyn pauses with his sticky fingers just shy of Prompto’s lips.

Prompto’s jaw snaps shut. “Fuck you,” he says through gritted teeth.

“I told you before, I believe, that if you could not remain still for me, I would enforce it. You are hardly remaining still.” He touches Prompto’s elbow, two fingers pressing down on the grey shading he just added, and Prompto jerks so hard the ropes bite him.

“I’m not _begging_ you to be a _creep_.” There are some lines Prompto refuses to cross and gods damn it, that’s one of them.

Ardyn shrugs and withdraws his hand. “In that case, I suggest you stop struggling.”

Prompto’s nerves short out, his bones fill with lead, his muscles go to jelly; he grasps at ways to describe the paralysis that’s struck him. He _cannot move_. He can’t even scream, he finds out very fast. His lungs are working but they won’t let him draw in more than a regular breath. When he tries to look up at Ardyn, away from his arm and the needle in front of him, his eyes fail to so much as twitch.

“Do remember I gave you a choice, my dear boy.” Ardyn picks up the needle and begins again.

It’s worse, because he can still feel everything, but now he can’t distract himself from it.The needle is a constant hurt, and all the small irritations are more obvious, from his unhealed bruises to the little bit of hair tickling his nose to the way the ropes scratch against his bare skin. His jaw is still clenched shut and his muscles want to relax, but they can’t.Every little twitch he would have made, every time his toes would have curled or his thighs tensed to steady himself, that’s gone. There’s just Ardyn’s hand and the needle.

One toe, he thinks, if he can just focus on moving one _tiny_ part of his body, he’ll be able to break the rest of it. Just like sleep paralysis. A spell can’t hold onto him forever. So he tries, but every jab of the needle rattles his bones, and even the smallest muscles in his body refuse to respond to his demands.

“In ancient times,” Ardyn says, as he begins a series of dots that run up towards Prompto’s shoulder, “those who served the king would beg for the privilege of undergoing this ritual. There would be witnesses, a priest, a whole choir of acolytes to chant the blessings. Well, perhaps not for _you_.”

Prompto struggles to come up with something sharp to say back, but there’s no point, is there? Ardyn goes to dip his needle in ink again. The chimes ring, and scatter Prompto’s thoughts like spooked pigeons.

“For a Shield, certainly, or perhaps for a military leader, those who have proven themselves truly useful. The King’s little toy would not demand so much ceremony. What little we have here might be nearly close enough…”

Prompto prays to whatever gods will listen that he can stop hearing, and maybe they answer him; his head gets fuzzy after that, with pain and fear and Ardyn’s voice blending together into something that just makes him feel scraped out inside. Empty.

When Ardyn’s finished with this round, he leaves Prompto where he is, in the dark, tied to the floor. He’s kind enough to pull a blanket up to Prompto’s shoulders before he goes. Prompto hates himself for how grateful he is. It gets cold quickly without the candles and incense. His head clears as the air does, as much as can be expected.

He starts shivering pretty soon and it seems to break Ardyn’s magic. He can pull against the ropes, unclench his exhausted jaw, curl and uncurl his toes and feel them catch against the blankets. He almost doesn’t care that he’s still tied down. Just being able to move his own body feels like freedom.

That scares him on an existential level. If he had the energy, he thinks, he’d have a nice little freakout. But he really doesn’t. He’s thirsty and he’s exhausted and he just wants this to be _over_. The blankets are soft if the rope isn’t, and he’s warmer than he’s been in days. It doesn’t take long for him to fall into an uneasy sleep.

He awakes the next morning to his continuing nightmare - Ardyn entering the room to stand over him. There’s just enough light through the open door that Prompto can see the shine of his boots, the hem of his coat. He doesn’t have MTs with him this time, but then, after what he did yesterday, Prompto doesn’t think he ever needed them.

“Are you perhaps feeling a little more grateful today?” he asks.

Prompto does his best to turn his head away and doesn’t answer.

Ardyn clicks his tongue. “I’ll ask you again later.”

The candles are lit. The smoke begins to billow. There’s the oil again, spreading over Prompto’s skin, and then the glow of healing magic. It feels so good he feels his eyelids start drooping, even with Ardyn stroking him, up and down his arm. If he doesn’t think too hard it’s almost nice. At that thought, he shudders.

“I see we’ll need to get this out of the way,” Ardyn murmurs. “Would you like something to eat?”

“Can’t you just _get on with it_?” Prompto’s voice creaks with dehydration and anger.

Ardyn strokes his hair back out of his eyes, a parody of affection that would have Prompto wanting to be sick if there was anything for him to throw up. “I know your king is lenient with you, and you have not been taught proper manners, so I shall give you another chance to answer me before I take care of this myself.”

He sounds so reasonable. Prompto nods, just once.

“Be good,” Ardyn says. He’s already picking up the pot of honey, ready to dip into it as soon as Prompto gives the word. “Ask.”

Prompto licks his dry lips. It doesn't help much. “Please,” he whispers.

Ardyn smiles, and his fingers press into Prompto’s open mouth. Prompto closes his eyes and licks the honey off them and tries not to think. When Ardyn’s given him most of the jar, he’s apparently pleased, because Prompto gets a bent straw pressed to his lips and when he sucks, there’s water.

“Poor little broken toy,” Ardyn coos. “Is that better?”

Prompto doesn’t growl like he wants to, in case Ardyn takes the water away. It’s cold and tastes like dirt, just like all the water out of the taps here; he doesn’t care. Ardyn laughs at his eagerness and gives him a second cup when he finishes the first.

“I expect that to hold you,” Ardyn says. “I would prefer not to have to repeat yesterday.” Prompto just nods. He won’t move again. He might go insane if he has to take another day of being frozen like that.

The chimes ring, and Ardyn picks up the needle, and there’s pain. Prompto doesn’t move. He stays still while more white ink goes up the back of his arm, and while Ardyn looms over him to start on his shoulder. Even when Ardyn jams the needle too hard into his shoulder blade, right into the bone, he only grunts at the pain.

The incense and the chimes, the heavy air, are starting to get to his head again. He thinks he’s almost hit it, that empty place where he can ignore what’s happening to him, but then Ardyn starts praising him.

“You’re doing so well,” he murmurs, as he taps ink into Prompto’s shoulder. Prompto can’t even see the color of the ink anymore, and he doesn’t know why that makes it worse, but it does.

“You haven’t even cried.” Ardyn’s voice is as sticky-sweet as the honey, and has about the opposite effect on Prompto’s stomach. Keep breathing, he thinks, don’t move, you know you can get rid of it later. If there is a later, some treacherous part of his mind supplies, but he ignores it. He’s gonna get through this.

“Most do, eventually. It’s a shock to the body. But, ah, of course, you were made to handle such shocks.”

Prompto’s left hand curls into a fist. He concentrates on the chimes, on the needle. Not on Ardyn’s words; if he’s careful, he thinks he can let his voice pass through him like yesterday. He just wants to go away again. Go away and not come back until Noct is there. Or maybe just not come back ever. Let Noct forget about him, so he’ll never have to explain any of this. Damn it. He takes the deepest breath he thinks he can, and lets it out slowly. Takes in another, lets it out. Counts the pinpricks of pain sinking into his back and tries to slow his heartbeat to the rhythm of the needle.

Ardyn runs his hand through Prompto’s hair and says, “Noctis will _love_ it, I’m sure,” and ruins any hope of mental escape.

A long, long time later, Ardyn says, “It’s complete.”

Prompto cracks his eyes open. His muscles, especially in his shoulder and his hands, are screaming from how tight he’s been holding himself. He’s sweating all over. Even his hair feels damp and gross.

Ardyn’s back over at the side of the blanket pile. He pats Prompto’s wrist like he’s congratulating an animal on a trick. “Very well done.”

Instead of leaving him, this time, Ardyn massages yet more oil into Prompto’s skin. It stings on the freshly opened places, and Prompto hisses, but he doesn’t move. Even when the healing magic seals in the ink, he doesn’t move, except to close his eyes.

Ardyn’s hands leave him and Prompto feels the ropes release. He doesn’t realize at first that it means he _can_ move now. He lies still until Ardyn’s soft laughter jolts him. Then he tries - makes some attempt at trying. His hands don’t work right, or his arms, or his legs. And Ardyn’s too close.

“Very good,” Ardyn says. He leans forward and grabs Prompto’s wrist, and drags him closer with surprising strength. Prompto is sitting up with his back pressed into Ardyn’s chest before he really knows what happened. Ardyn holds his right wrist in one hand and bars his left arm and his chest with the other. He doesn’t need to bother. Prompto is still fuzzy on the concept of voluntary muscle action.

Ardyn extends his hand out, angling it so Prompto can get his first good look at the tattoo. From the back of his hand, past where he can see his shoulder, a stylized, skeletal animal leaps down his arm and wraps claws around his wrist. His barcode is still clearly visible, tuckedin between its chin and one claw. The lines are more organic than on Gladio’s tattoo, with more texture and depth, but it’s very clearly done in the same style.

Prompto feels sick again. “What in the hell…”

“The behemoth of Niflheim,” Ardyn says. “Reworked for the Lucian court.” Prompto has never hated being short quite as much as when Ardyn’s behind him. His chin is digging into the top of Prompto’s head. Too close, too warm, too much like intimacy.

Prompto gets it part of the way. He knows the crests of both countries. What he doesn’t get is what kind of sense it makes to put on _him_. “Why…” he starts, and stops when Ardyn drops his wrist and his hand comes up towards Prompto’s face. Fear freezes him as hard as Ardyn’s spell, if only for a second.

Ardyn just puts a finger to Prompto’s lips. “A gift for the Lucii,” he says. He’s speaking into Prompto’s hair and Prompto can feel his breath. “From the court of daemons to the court of death. I thought it best to make it explicit; after all, we wouldn’t want Noctis to get the wrong idea about what you are.”

Prompto shudders. “I won’t tell him. What it means. He won't know.”

Ardyn’s drawl is mocking. “You’re certainly not the only one with the privilege of speaking to the king.” He runs his hands over Prompto’s shoulders, possessively, gripping both his wrists when he reaches them. “He’ll get the message.”

Prompto’s frozen again. When Ardyn stands up, Prompto falls forward, catching himself on his palms and then just… sitting there, staring. At the new addition, and his old barcode neatly avoided by its lines. Ardyn pats him on the head and walks out. The MTs each scoop up pieces of Ardyn’s setup and follow, leaving the cell bare and cold again.

The last MT throws a bundle of his clothes at him as it walks out and bolts the door behind it. It takes Prompto a solid half hour before he can force himself to move far enough to put them back on.


End file.
